I am torn about this next blog post. I videoed a young buck that had hurt his left front shoulder/leg. As shown in the video below, he was limping pretty bad. I only have one tag left and 2 full months of hunting so I decided not to shoot him.
As to what caused this injury? I heard a big fight before I saw him come out of that area and I am betting he got gored by another buck. A buddy of mine saw him later that evening and could see a hole above his shoulder. In the video you can see him skittishly run away at the sign of another deer, just like you would if you had gotten beat up. The rut is violent and deer will die due to that fact.
As I am sitting there with this mercy dilemma, some does come into the food plot to start feeding. What does he do? It being the rut, he started chasing them even while badly hurt. The desire for these animals to breed amazes me and this proves it. I do believe in the circle of life so I am sure Mother Nature will take care of this by most likely a lucky coyote that is going to have a feast. Sad but that’s life.
I was sitting in a tower stand videoing my Dad the next day after tagging out with a big 7 pointer, when we had an encounter with the buck we call Crab Claw 10 Jr. Crab Claw 10 Jr. appeared in the back door of our tower stand and my Dad looked up and saw him. I could not get the camera around fast enough to get the shot videoed but my Dad knocked him down. The video below is pretty funny of me trying to get on the buck. Once again, all I have is the recovery video. Congratulations to my Dad for killing a fine mature 10 pointer. That is 3 bucks in 6 days. When the rut is kicking, it is kicking.
You heard that saying that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well this one night time photo is along those lines. This is the only one I got of this mature buck but it says a lot.
I love the sound of that. I have never killed 2 bucks in Georgia before, but I did this year. That’s the good news. Bad news is that it happened so fast I did not have a chance to video it. I had a doe come across our power line food plot at the speed of sound with two smaller bucks in hot pursuit. Then, about a minute later the biggest 7 pointer I have ever seen popped out. He was trailing the hot pursuit. I grunted him to a stop and busted him in the brisket where he stumbled 40 yards and died. The whole time for this event was less than 90 seconds and I had to catch my breath afterwards.
The buck was about 210 pounds and was 4 1/2 years old and was one of the two bucks I had videoed from over 524 yards that I wrote about in the previous posts. His score is not that great due to him missing a G3 but he is a trophy in my eyes. He will look great on my wall. Here is the post shot interview with me and my Dad. Now I will have to put the gun down and pick up the camera here in GA. Good news is that Mississippi is not far off and I got all new fresh tags.
On my way out from hunting, I came across 2 shooter bucks bedded down with a doe. I could not get a shot and the doe got up and eased further into the pine thicket. I knew they were going to stay bedded and I could come back that evening. There were 2 tower stands on an 8 acre oats food plot on a power line right of way and I figured they would get up and feed in this food plot. I was right, just in the wrong tower stand, as you can see in the video below. 2 nice bucks. Now the video is a little shaky and not clear but that is because I am digitally zoomed into them at 524 yards.
I captured a series of photos of a nice buck lock down with a doe at one of our feed stations. He beds down while she feeds. Once she gets up, he jumps up to follow her. It is amazing the story trail camera photos can tell sometimes. I put in a video to give it some animation.
Well, I start this post by saying I was wrong. When you hunt, you have to set your expectations as to what you want to shoot ahead of time. In the previous post, Trail Camera Buck Size Distortion Phenomenon, I talked about letting a great shooter buck go that we named No Brow Jr. When I saw and videoed him, he just did not impress me. My thinking was also influenced by a recent event that happened the day before. A good buddy of mine shot a 3 1/2 year old 196 pound 7 pointer that only scored about 90 inches; which apparently had more of an effect on me than I knew. All this was going through my head and I talked myself out of shooting him. Then I came up with my trail camera distortion concept and wrote a blog
post to make me feel better about this decision.
Now, to the current story. In the video below you see me shoot a 10 point buck following a doe. I saw the buck coming through the woods and it did not take more than 3 seconds to determine he was a shooter buck. So when he stepped into shooting lane, I shot him. He ran about 50 yards and died. I was very excited to have killed him. A friend of mine pointed out it was No Brow Jr. I said no way, but it turned out to be him. I am even confused in the post shot interview as you can see below in the video. I was still making excuses for not shooting the week before.
After thinking about all of this, I came to the conclusion that my expectations were high due to all the outside stimulus. When I did not over analyze the deer, I made the right decision. A 3 1/2 year old, 200 pound deer is a shooter in GA and I am proud to have taken him.
We have not captured a photo of 911 since he was in velvet back in August. I feel that he has a large home range and that is the reason he is so hard to get on camera during the non-rutting period. That is the bad news. The good news is that the rut has started and we recently got him passing through one of our camera location as shown below. Maybe one of us will have a shot at him.
I bought a Moultrie ReAction camera (Link to Moultrie’s Official product page) to try out and possibly add it to my video arsenal. This 720p HD camera can be mounted in various ways and with a retail price of around $150 is very affordable for any hunter.
It runs off 2 AA batteries and can take up to a 16 Gb SD card. I used an 8 Gb SD card and it says on it’s display that it can record up to 2 1/2 hours of high definition video. It also records sounds and takes still 5 Mb photos. It has a 1.5″ LCD display where you can watch the videos back or if you dare, you can watch it LIVE while you video. I have found that the digital 8X zooms is useless due to how bad the pixels deform while using it. You can see this in one of my test video clips compiled below.
As mentioned before, there are various ways to mount and use the ReAction camera. It comes with a clip that will fix to your hat as shown below. Now to use this, you really have to practice, due to the fact that you might think you are filming in front of you while actually you are filming lower – sometimes your feet. You really have to have your hat pointed in an upward position. You can see this in one of the video clips compiled below.
It also comes with a mounting bracket that allows you to mount it to the rail of a tree stand or something like that. You can then film out in front of you or you can make the ReAction a point of view (POV) camera. I have examples of these options in the video clip below. Since I used a good quality camera to film my hunts, I have been using the ReAction as a POV camera to film me while I am filming the hunt. I really liked this use and this is most likely how I am going to use it.
The other option is to free hand the camera. This works good, but as mentioned before, the 1.5″ LCD display can be challenging to see and once again you have to practice to get the shots you are wanting.
Now I was really disappointed in low light conditions, such as the last 15 minutes during the evening and first 15 minutes in the morning. Then I remembered that this was a $150 camera and that it did not have the technology needed to illuminate those kinds of shots and I quickly got over it. Now, I have 2 videos to demonstrate this condition in the test compilation video below.
Another reason I bought this camera was so that my Dad and 11 year old son can take it with them when they hunt. The idea that they can capture their hunt with an inexpensive camera was very appealing to me. I will have to get my Dad and son to practice, but whatever they video will be worth it. Stay tuned for these videos from them. It should be interesting.
Two of my hunting buddies also bought bought these ReAction cameras and they were nice enough to let me use some of their videos in this test demonstration video. So watch the video below to see all of these examples that I have talked about.
I recommend this camera to any hunter who wants to record that hunting moment. You have to practice with it and for the price and quality of video, can you afford not to buy one and throw it in your bag? Take it hunting and share your adventure with family and friends.
Now if you have read any of the postings on this blog, you know how much I love my trail cameras and how I like to use them. A few weeks ago, I tested and am now the proud owner of 2 PlotWatcher time elapse cameras (Read the previous review). I wanted to discuss how I am using both of these cameras for my different scouting applications.
The first application is where I placed my PlotWatchers on a mowed out lane to learn how the deer cross. I also placed it on a food plot to see where the deer are entering the food plot from their bedding areas. This is typical time elapse surveillance and the PlotWatcher and its software is built for this purpose. After getting this data, I then proceeded to place my trail cameras where I saw the deer traveling across the targeted areas mentioned above for closer day and night photos. See the video below for the results.
The second application is where I actually mount the PlotWatcher over my trail camera as shown below.
We have a new feeding station surrounded by bedding area and we wanted to know which side the deer were bedding on. This was an interesting experiment since the lane is about 100 yards long. The trail camera would pick up the deer 50 feet or less, including at night, while the PlotWatcher got the whole 100 yards but only during the day.
The video below shows the trail camera photos and the PlotWatcher videos for these different applications and it really shows the value of using a time elapse camera such as the PlotWatcher in conjunction with a trail camera. This was an interesting experiment in which I will be adding to my trail camera strategies. Stay tuned for more photos and time elapse videos.
